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Suez Canal Economic Zone set for fast growth - chairman

Egypt's Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCEZ) has actually invested $3 billion on facilities over the previous couple of years and has plans to invest a comparable quantity over the next few years as it works to draw in financiers, its chairman said in an interview.

The zone, a collection of 6 ports and four commercial areas alongside, or near the waterway, has actually been provided special legal and tax benefits to benefit from the vast amount of international shipping passing by.

While government-run, it is administratively separate from the canal. Attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen's Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, has diverted traffic from the Suez Canal, triggering profits to fall by almost $3 billion in the very first half of 2024 to $1.83 billion.

The political instability in the region has stressed the advantage of diversity and hedging, Gamal El-Dein stated, adding investments have actually settled, with a boom in new projects over the last 24 months.

We have had the ability to draw in more than $6.3 billion of financial investments in numerous sectors and logistics and ports, and 164 jobs, seven of which were in our ports, and the rest factories and logistics sites within the zone, Gamal El-Dein stated, including that he anticipated this number to grow sharply.

We're trying to find something much higher than this, he stated. Currently this year, we have actually attracted near to $1 billion -- in the first 4 months of the , which started in July.

MORE CONTAINER BERTHS

Among these have been the East Port Said container port that includes a general cargo terminal about to be operational imminently, a roll-on, roll-off car terminal expected to be running by January and a container terminal due to be operational by April.

Some 2.4 km (1.5 miles) of container berths at East Port Said have actually been running for several years, but the SCEZ is now in talks with operators to contract for an extra 1 km stated Gamal El-Dein, who used up his post as chairman in August 2022.

The SCEZ hopes that private investors will help build much of the brand-new facilities.

The zone drew in more than 160 jobs over the last two years, Gamal El-Dein stated.

Now we recognize that we need to invest more in infrastructure to serve future tasks beyond the 160, he said. Before these 160 jobs, we had something in the tune of 300 business. So effectively, in 2 years, we increased by almost 50%.

One example is desalination The zone has one desalination. plant at Sokhna on the Red Sea, simply south of the southern entrance to the canal.

We're dealing with developing another at Sokhna specifically for the shared centers for the green hydrogen industry, so to guarantee that they get the right amount of necessary water for that market, with a first stage of around 250,000 cubic meters daily. The tender will be released soon, with building expected to be completed in 2-4 years.

The zone has actually been setting itself up as a centre for green fuels, including green hydrogen, green ammonia and green methanol, having previously signed 15 structure contracts and 8 memoranda of comprehending for potential projects.

(source: Reuters)